


I Thought it Was Prohibited

by InsecurelyPerfect



Category: Original Work
Genre: Prohibition, including coffee, not just alcohol all drugs, secret coffee house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 19:16:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18288566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsecurelyPerfect/pseuds/InsecurelyPerfect
Summary: Coffee is prohibited.  What happens when an officer stumbles upon a forbidden shop?





	I Thought it Was Prohibited

The smell of coffee beans filled my nose as usual, and my hand gripped the knob, twisting it to let myself in. The alley our coffee shop was on wasn't the best, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

Drugs had only been outlawed for four years, and everyone was more or less okay with it. However, I had couldn't live without my morning cup of coffee, so I opened up a coffee shop. All users of caffeine had gathered in the abandoned warehouse to decide we weren’t having it. We needed our caffeine. 

It was the cutest little place once we got it all spruced up. The carpenters and interior decorators were very nice about my lack of money. What they agreed to exchange the money for was coffee. I just give them free coffee the rest of the time they came in.

We had been called The Steam Room. Everything had been going smoothly for the first year and a half of our opening. Most of the cops that passed by couldn't see in through our tinted windows, and they just assumed that it was a vape shop or a strip club. We tried so hard not to be caught. We had never gotten in trouble when cops thought that we were a vape shop because when they had outlawed all the drugs in the world, vapes didn't always contain nicotine, so the ones without nicotine were still permitted. Other cops just didn't have the time to stop into what they thought was a run down porn center. That wasn't the case, though, and they would never find out the truth. That was, until Samuelson walked into The Steam Room. 

It was a cold day in October. Colder than anticipated. I could see my breath when I exhaled, and if I moved my mouth in a specific way, it almost looked as if I had been smoking a cigarette. I buried my face in the collar of my coat, my gloved hands jammed tightly in my pockets, fingers curled tightly around the key I needed to open the doors of The Steam Room.

Staying true to the name, the moment I had walked into The Steam Room, I begun to warm up from the coffee beans being ground in the coffee machine. It was always something that warmed me up and made me feel better as I got ready for the day. I was in my element.

The day was slow when Samuelson walked in. His uniform made him look so official and his hand was placed on the handle of his gun as he cocked the side of his hip out with his gun sticking out so everyone knew he was there. I wondered why he was there. He was a short, pale man. He had blond hair that was spiked up and there were black sunglasses on his face. He had a scowl drawn on his mouth and there was a thin little wooden toothpick sticking out of the scowl on his mouth. I felt my heart rate pick up as he just stood there, inhaling the aromas that surrounded him.

He had to have been there for a reason, he wouldn't just wander into an old, destroyed, beat up looking restaurant on official police business for no reason. I was waiting behind the counter, waiting for him to come up to me and explain all of the laws we were violating and everything wrong with what we were doing, how he was likely going to have to call down all of his police friends for back up and arrest everyone here. But that never happened.

He walked up to the counter, of course. However, the strangest thing happened. There was a smile plastered across his face. He seemed fake. Like he was just trying to get our hopes up before pulling a "you're breaking the law" card. Totally valid, but it sucked hard every time. "C - can I help you?" I stuttered out. 

"You guys sell coffee here?"

The officer had a strong Brooklyn accent, and as he spoke, he wasn't looking at me. He was still resting his hand on the handle of his gun, but he was peering through the case on the counter, next to the check out register. Behind the window were donuts, and cakes, cookies, slices of pies, all kinds of deserts and things that haven't been around in so long. Everyone missed it all, and Samuelson was no exception.

"Uh, yes, sir," I said slowly.

He chuckled, pulling his sunglasses down to reveal some deep hazel eyes. "Son, you don't need to be afraid of me, I promise. Even though I should report this joint, I miss my cups of joe in the morning to motivate me to get through the day. When we outlawed drugs, no one ever expected caffeine to be part of that, but there was a huge epidemic rising up from the adolescents. We had to do something, we couldn't just sit idly by and wait for all of the human population to die before we did something to figure all of it out. I wish we weren't so pro active all the time, though, you know?"

Samuelson, as his golden name tag read, reminisced about all the things he loved from coffee, talking about where he thought the world went wrong in trying to prevent all of the bad things from happening.

That made me smile. Sure, I was sad for him that he had to go through that. Of course, it sucked that he was so insecure in his own self that he thought he needed coffee to make him feel better, but it didn't mean a ton to him.

He lightly banged his fist on the counter once. He wasn't mad or anything, he just didn't know what else to do with himself. "I really should report this place. I'm supposed to. I figured this was just some kind of weird strip club, and I more or less just got off from work and I just wanted to let some steam off, but when I walked in, I got hit in the face with the smell that I missed so damn much. So, hey, what do you say, hitting me up with a cup?"

My mind was racing. I didn't know what to do. What if this was a trap of some sort? Was he testing my ability to follow the law? Was he being genuine? I didn't know at this point and I found it really frustrating. "Uh, yeah, um, sure, I guess. What kind of, uh, coffee do you want? Anything you want in it in particular?"

He glanced over our menu for a moment.

"I think I will take a large caramel frap with a pump of espresso."


End file.
